Frank
by WerewolfDuelistofSliferRed
Summary: After a storm, Elizabeth finds an injured rabbit that is strange-looking at best. She takes him home to nurse him back to health, but what happens when the newfound friendship causes a strain on the relationship between her and Syrus? Wolfshipping
1. Chapter 1

The air was fragrant with the smell of wet grass as Elizabeth walked down the path through the forest. The sky was still rather dark, being that it was five in the morning (she had been having bouts of insomnia lately), and a thin layer of fog wafted above the ground.

There had been a terrible storm the night before, and, as if to simply annoy its inhabitants, the roof of the Slifer dorm had sprung a leak, which continued even after the only remaining parts of the storm were thunder and lightning. But, as always, Jaden had found something to do. The four of them (including Hassleberry and Syrus) had pulled out an old portable DVD player (yet another of Elizabeth's eBay purchases) and watched Donnie Darko.

However, only Elizabeth truly enjoyed the movie. Jaden and Hassleberry weren't able to follow it, and from the second Frank the demonic six-foot-tall appeared, Syrus had hidden under the covers. Once the film ended, the friends went to bed, but Elizabeth couldn't seem to sleep (again). She eventually gave up and went for a walk, putting her in her current position.

She was just about to turn back, when a rustling and white flash beside her caught her eye. She scented the air, but the scents of the storm were too strong to discern from any other. The bushes on the other side of her rustled, and she walked over to them.

She got on her hands and knees, when something scratched her face and darted across the path, only to collapse in the middle of it. She walked over and picked it up in order to get a closer look at it.

What she saw was a rabbit, but its appearance was unlike any other rabbit she had seen before. Its eyes were very large, so that they seemed to be ready to pop out at any moment, ant it had not two buck teeth, but ten. The rabbit was shaking, wet, and Elizabeth now noticed that its right hind paw was bleeding.

Elizabeth took off her blazer and wrapped it around the rabbit before turning around and walking back to the dorm. She felt its shaking stop as it fell asleep. She smiled as the dorm came into view.

Once inside, she silently took the first aid kit out from under what she called the Loose Floorboard O' Junk and took out a bandage and some peroxide. As she cleaned the wound, the rabbit flinched and started to squeak. She quickly stopped and covered its mouth.

"Shh, you have to be quiet until the others wake up. Otherwise they'll throw you out for sure! You're just lucky I don't need a light to see what I'm doing," she whispered. The rabbit settled down enough for her to finish cleaning and dressing the wound. She set him down on the desk to get a better look at him since he had dried off a little.

"You sure are a strange little thing, aren't you?" she asked. "In fact, you look almost like…" she started, before being interrupted by a loud ringing.

"Yikes, the alarm clock! We've got to get you hidden!" she said, looking every which way for a hiding spot. She finally decided on the cabinet, and quickly put the rabbit inside before the others could see. Jaden woke up with a yawn.

"Mornin' Liz. You're up early," he said.

"Not really, usually you sleep through the alarm clock," she said as Syrus and Hasselberry made their way down from the bunks.

"Hey, anyone want some coffee?" Syrus asked.

"Sure private," Hassleberry said. Elizabeth's eyes grew wide.

"Uh, why do we need coffee, I mean, coffee's so bad for you and…" she started.

"This from the biggest coffee drinker out of all of us," Syrus said.

"Well, uh, see it won't eventually kill me, but you guys…"

"Liz, one cup's not gonna kill us," Jaden said.

"Jaden's right, private," Hassleberry said.

Elizabeth was about to make up another excuse, but before she could, Syrus opened the cabinet door and slammed it shut just as fast, his skin growing even paler than it was before.

"Elizabeth, why is there a scary bunny in the cabinet?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"Liz," he started.

"I don't know," she repeated.

"Oh, so you don't know about _this_?!" he said, pulling the rabbit out by the scruff of his neck.

"Hey, don't hurt him!" she said, quickly, but gently, so as not to hurt him.

"Liz, explain," he said, obviously in a bad mood.

"Okay, okay. I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk. Frank was running around, and…"

"You _named_ it?" Syrus asked.

"Yes, anyway, he was running around and he collapsed. His foot was hurt; it looks like he was bitten or something. I couldn't just leave him to die, so I took him home, dressed the wound, and hid him so you wouldn't find him."

"You _named _it?" Syrus asked.

"Him," she said.

"What?" he asked.

"Frank's a boy rabbit," she said.

"And a weird one at that," Hasselberry said, looking at Frank's teeth and eyes.

"Yeah, I can see why you called him Frank," Jaden said.

"Well, you'll have to say goodbye to Frank here, because he's leaving," Syrus said.

"No, not until he's healed. He'll die out there!" she said.

"Good riddance, something like _this_ shouldn't be running around," Syrus said.

"You shouldn't judge him by his looks," she said.

"And why not?" he asked.

"Because you didn't judge me by mine," she said, grabbing Frank and walking out, slamming the door behind her.

**Note: I've never seen Donnie Darko because I was nervous about what Frank would look like. Ironically, I saw him on a flyer at Hastings around Easter and started thinking, "What if Elizabeth found a rabbit like that?" I still haven't seen it because I'm a chicken and don't want to watch it alone.**


	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth walked for a while, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Thoughts flowed through her mind so quickly that she had trouble sorting them out.

_Why would Syrus be so cruel to Frank? I mean sure, he looks weird, but hey, I'm no model, and that didn't stop Syrus from asking me out. Maybe he was just in a bad mood; I'm sure he didn't sleep well after that movie last night. Then again, I have to wonder how Frank got this way, and how he got hurt. Maybe he was born this way, or he was in some sort of accident. But what could cause so many teeth? Wait a minute, I think I know just the person who can help!_

Elizabeth darted down the path to the academy so quickly that by the time she got to the proper office, she could barely breathe. She gently knocked on the door.

"Come in," said a voice, and Elizabeth walked into the infirmery. Ms. Fontaine sat in a chair, working on her computer, but she turned to face Elizabeth.

"Oh, Elizabeth. What seems to be the problem?" she asked.

"Well, I was wondering if you could tell me what happened to Frank here," Elizabeth said, bringing Frank out from her blazer pocket.

"Oh my," she said, eying Frank. "Elizabeth, I'm a doctor, not a veterinarien."

"But you're the only person I know who might be able to help," she said.

"All right, set him down on the desk and let's have a look," she said, Elizabeth following her orders. Ms. Fontaine took a light and looked into Frank's eyes. He started, but calmed down when Elizabeth scratched his ears, which Ms. Fontaine looked in as well, when a strange look came over her face.

"Hmm, he seems to be perfectly healthy except for that leg, which you did very well on I might add," she said.

"So he just looks weird, and he's not sick or in pain?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yes, I'd say he was born like this, and it doesn't seem to have affected his ability to eat or run, but I did find something strange," Ms. Fontaine said.

"What?"

"A number and letter sequence," Ms. Fontaine said, showing Elizabeth the tell-tale code: CTS52942438.

"What does it mean?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'd say that before you found him, Frank was a lab rabbit," Ms. Fontaine said.

"My God, what did they do to him in there?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'm not sure; you'll have to do research," she said, and Elizabeth thanked her before walking out.

"Well Frank, it seems it's time to head to the library," she said, petting said rabbit's head.


	3. Chapter 3

Elizabeth gently set Frank in her lap as she flipped through a book on animal testing. She found a chapter on rabbits and read through it.

**Rabbits are often used in chemical experiments to test cleaning products. In many cases, the rabbits are lined up in rows of hutches, and their eyes are taped open. These measures are taken to ensure that the chemicals, when squirted into the rabbits' eyes, get into them entirely and to ensure that the rabbits do not claw their eyes out. However, rabbits are also used in burn and inhalation experiments, surgical experiments, disease research (mainly scabies), and genetic engineering. **

A picture at the bottom showed the hutches, and throughout the chapter, as well as throughout the book, all Elizabeth saw was carnage and suffering: Monkeys used in AIDS experiments, Beagles forced to smoke, rats being cut open. Rodents, livestock, even _pets _were being tortured. In one picture a rabbit's blood was being drained by Tsetse flies; in another dead cats and dogs lined cold metal shelves. Elizabeth had to hold her breath to keep from vomiting.

Ironically, all this had just covered ten pages out of _two hundred_. She checked out the book and walked back to the dorm. When she got there, she fopped down on the bed; she was shaking so badly, she hadn't been able to stand.

"Good Heavens private, what happened to have you shaking so bad?" Hasselberry asked. Elizabeth sighed.

"I found out that Frank was a lab rabbit, and I did research to see what he may have been through and... Oh God," she said, sobbing. Jaden walked in from a shower and found them.

"Liz, what's wrong?" Jaden asked, but Elizabeth couldn't stop crying. Frank rubbed against her.

"Liz, if it's about Frank, we don't care if he stays, and Syrus had no right to try and kick him out."

"It's not that Sarge, Frank here was a lab rabbit, so Elizabeth tried to see what he went through and I'm guessing found more than she bargained for." Jaden opened the book and flipped through, dropping it in disgust when he saw a particularly gruesome picture of a carved up German Shephard. He had one at home, named Bruno. Elizabeth finally calmed down.

"Thanks Jaden, I just... don't want him to suffer anymore," she said. She looked like she'd just opened Pandora's Box or something.

"He doesn't have to," Jaden said, finally seeing the code in Frank's ear.


End file.
